


the stars the moon they have all been blown out (you left me in the dark)

by madasthesea



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Blindness, Deaf Character, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Morse Code, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Platonic Cuddling, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Protective Peter, Tony Whump, Tony-centric, dysphonia, mute character, mutilation in a dream sequence, violence in a dream sequence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-02 10:59:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15795141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madasthesea/pseuds/madasthesea
Summary: It starts off with his vision fading in and out.What kind of demon drug can make someone go blind by inhaling a single lungful? Whatever it is, Tony doubts it’s reversible. And while Peter’s no idiot, he can be idiotically optimistic. He's determined to fix what appears to be unfixable.





	1. Blind

**Author's Note:**

> The ridiculously long title is from Cosmic Love by Florence+The Machine. Also I tried to be really careful about dealing with the blindness issue, but if something seems insensitive or is worded wrong let me know and I'll fix it.

It starts off with his vision fading in and out.

He’d gotten a lungful of powder during a skirmish with some back-alley drug lord. A little small time for Iron Man, but he had good intel that said drug lord had a vendetta against Spider-Man and had done something so _Batman Comics_ as to put a bounty on his head.

Obviously, Tony had to step in.

And, yeah, maybe he shouldn’t have lowered his helmet while the guy was being cuffed by a star-struck beat cop, but he hadn’t expected said criminal to wrestle free from his bonds long enough to turn and blow a handful of searing red powder into his face.

Tony had inhaled it before he could even register it. Ignoring the officer’s suggestions to come to the precinct to get examined, Tony had closed the helmet and flown off.

The first wave hits less than a minute later. FRIDAY takes over flying the suit while Tony paints the air blue, coughing between curses. His vision is back in seconds, but it freaks him out enough to go straight to his lab and run blood tests.

“Is this some kind of super LSD that’s going to make me claw my own brain out or something, FRI?”

“I don’t believe so, sir. I’m unfamiliar with the chemical composition of the substance, but it is dissimilar from all major intoxicants that I know of,” she says. It’s not quite enough of an answer to satisfy him.

He’s about to run more tests on the dregs of the powder he could get off his suit when his vision goes black. It takes two minutes for it to come back.

The next time it happens, he’s walking up the stairs. He faceplants, immediately bruising his knee and giving himself a bloody nose. That’s when FRIDAY calls for help, without telling Tony.

Pepper’s in Korea with Happy, and Rhodey’s in California, which explains why Peter Parker shows up on his doorstep twenty minutes later, with a backpack full of clothes and a worried expression.

“Oh, no,” Tony sighs when he sees him. “Tell me FRI didn’t rope you into coming here to look after me?”

“No, she requested that I come and help you figure out whatever drug is in your system,” Peter answers smoothly, slipping past Tony.

“That’s the same thing,” Tony grumbles, following Peter into his living room.

 

The next episode is five minutes. Tony goes stock still and tries to breathe through the panic.

Something touches his arm and Tony startles so badly he elbows Peter in the stomach.

“Sorry, sorry,” Peter chants—he doesn’t even sound winded, which is a relief—audibly scurrying away.

“It’s fine, just—” Tony cuts off, motioning for Peter to hold still. He stays standing there until his vision comes back. When it does, he doesn’t look Peter in the face, just sniffs and mutters, “All good.”

Peter approaches warily. “I really am sorry, Mr. Stark. I should have thought...”

Tony forces a smile, tries to distract himself with assuaging Peter’s guilt. “It’s nothing, Pete. I would have done the same thing.”

Peter still looks sheepish, but he nods. “Let’s go figure this out.”

 

The lapses get longer and more frequent. It doesn’t take Tony long to realize that his sight is going to go permanently. He takes a few minutes from his half-frantic research to throw together a wristband that will beep if he gets too close to a wall or a ledge. Peter glances at him out of the corner of his eye so often he’s probably dizzy.

The next time his vision goes, he doesn’t think it’s going to come back. To distract himself from the oppressive blackness, he does what he does best. He talks. A lot. He tells Peter rambling stories about MIT and some edited tales of his early days running SI and a few of the more dramatic Avengers missions back in their glory days.

He slowly pokes his way over to where he knows he has an old engine sitting on a workbench.

“What are you doing?” Peter asks, with a tone like a nervous first-time babysitter.

“I’m going to take this apart and put it back together again,” Tony answers, feeling along an array of tools to find the right one.

“Why?”

“Cause I always joked I could do it blindfolded and now I want to see if I can.” He can, it turns out, though the bottom of the engine block falls out on his foot and he spends two minutes swearing under his breath in a strained whisper while Peter laughs in the background.

Fifty-two minutes after it starts, he blinks and suddenly he can see again. He squints at the light.

Peter’s watching him, looking hopeful as Tony meets his gaze.

“You know it’s not going to last, right?” Tony gently reminds him. Peter’s no idiot, but he is idiotically optimistic. Sometimes he chooses to ignore harsh truths, like the fact that Tony is going to go blind.

Peter shrugs. “Yeah, probably. But it might.”

It doesn’t. In just half an hour, Tony’s eyes stop working again and he knows in his gut that they’re not going to get better.

He clenches his hands together and takes deep breaths. There’s an instinctual kind of panic in his chest that cowers away from the impenetrable black, that rages against the loss of his sight. He tries swallowing it down, but it sits heavy in his throat.

Warm hands against his. He flinches in surprise, but the hands follow, long fingers wrapping around his.

“It’s ok, Mr. Stark,” Peter says. “We’ll figure it out.”

Tony appreciates that he doesn’t say that they’ll fix it. He doesn’t think it can be fixed.

 

There’s only so much research Tony can do when he can’t read. He puts in an earpiece and has FRIDAY read him some of the reports Peter’s been scouring over, but most of the information is in charts and pictures. After having FRIDAY mechanically describe four graphs in a row, Tony pulls the earpiece out and groans.

“FRI, note to self, invent a better audio-descriptive program. That was torturous, I can’t believe people deal with that every time someone sends them an emoji.”

Peter snorts from Tony’s left. He sounds closer than the last time he’d spoken. Tony thinks he’s inching nearer out of some worry-induced need to help.

Tony spins idly in his chair, his foot connecting with Peter’s leg on accident. _Knew it_ , he congratulates himself.

“You know,” Tony starts, and Peter hums to indicate he’s listening. He gets hyper-focused on things, sometimes. Tony wishes he could see the face he was making; Peter’s concentration face is almost criminally adorable. “You know, there’s a guy in Hell’s Kitchen who’s blind and still does the whole... fighting bad guys thing.”

“Yeah, I’ve met him,” Peter says mildly.

Tony sticks out a hand, catches himself on the desk nearest him after some flailing and stops spinning. “Wait, you’ve met him? How have you _met him_?” Daredevil dealt with stuff way above Peter’s paygrade, and didn’t have Peter’s “do no harm” policy. Tony did not want them associating if he could help it.

“I found him in a dumpster near the Flatiron District after that fight a couple months ago. With the octopus guy, remember?” Peter says somewhere to his right. Tony spins his chair a little so he’s actually facing Peter. “I helped him get home. That’s all.”

“Right. Sure. Good Samaritan Spider-Man, just helping a dangerous vigilante home after he was beat up and left for dead. No big deal.”

“I didn’t say he was beat up. And I’m a dangerous vigilante.” Tony actually snorts and Peter swats at his knee. “Ok, ok, why’d you bring him up?”

“I was just thinking, I mean, I could still... do that, too, really. Nothing stopping me,” Tony rambles, rubbing at his ear. He can practically feel Peter go still next to him. Tony isn’t sure how to interpret his reaction. He wishes he could see Peter’s face.

“Sure,” Peter says.

“What do you think, Pete? Think I could be an awesome blind superhero?” Tony asks, nudging Peter’s chair with his foot.

“Of course you could, Mr. Stark. But let’s try all our options before we call up Daredevil for training lessons, ok?” Peter jokes, a little shakily. Tony wonders for the first time if his blank stare is unsettling, and turns his head away.

Peter goes back to work. Tony thinks.  

“Boss, Miss Potts is calling,” FRIDAY announces. Tony jumps, remembers that he left his phone on the counter, and stills.

“Umm...” he murmurs. He didn’t want to do the embarrassing thing and feel around for his phone.

“I’m going to go get a snack,” Peter announces and Tony hears him stand. He smiles, hopes Peter sees it.

“Thanks, kid.”

After the door has closed behind Peter, FRIDAY answers the call on the speakers in the room.

“Tony,” Pepper says, sounding worried. Tony relaxes back into his chair.

“Hey, Pep.”

“I got FRIDAY’s message. Are you really losing your sight?”

“Lost. I lost my sight,” Tony admits, feeling his throat tighten. He bows his head and rubs at his eyes as if it would somehow fix this.

“Oh my gosh, Tony, are you alright? Is someone there to help you? I can be back by tomorrow afternoon, I’ll just have to cancel—”

“Pepper, Pepper, it’s ok, it’s fine. Peter’s here, he’s being really helpful. Don’t cancel your meetings, honey, there’s—” he pauses, the words tasting bitter on his tongue “—there’s nothing you can do, anyway.”

He won’t see her on their wedding day, he realizes. He won’t get to see what she looks like in the absurdly expensive, specially designed dress he’d insisted she get, won’t see her walking down the aisle surrounded by flowers and light.

He rubs at his eyes again and his fingers come away damp.

“If... if you’re sure,” Pepper says and Tony jerks back into the moment.

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“Ok. I’ll call tomorrow, alright? I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he replies and tries not to think about how he’ll never see her face again.

The call ends and Tony sits in silent darkness for a moment. Then he stands up.

“Ok, baby girl, walk me to the elevator.”

It’s like one of the those backyard games families play at barbeques, with one person calling out directions to someone else who’s blindfolded. Tony tries to keep a somewhat tidy lab, but there are a surprising number of things FRIDAY has him walk around or step over before he finally gets to the elevator doors. She takes him up to the floor Peter’s on without asking.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter yelps, surprised to see him. Tony can hear him hurrying forward. “You should have had FRIDAY get me, I would have come down and helped you.”

“Don’t need help walking, kid, especially with an all-seeing AI,” Tony says drily. Peter doesn’t answer, just takes Tony’s hand and starts pulling him forward. The kid is clingy on a good day, and it’s only exacerbated when he’s worried. Tony’s honestly surprised he didn’t latch on earlier.

“It’s after six, I was just about to start dinner,” Peter informs him, guiding him toward a seat at the table.

“I think my hearing’s going, too,” Tony jokes. “Did you say you’re cooking?”

“Very funny. I’m sixteen, I can cook a few things.” Tony imagines Peter’s patented ‘seriously, Mr. Stark?’ face and chuckles.

“Since when?”

“Well, May gets home from work late some nights, and I figured it would take some stress off if she didn’t have to worry about cooking dinner,” Peter says like it’s no big deal, like that’s a totally normal thing for a teenage boy to take upon himself. How did Tony get such a perfect kid?

“That is too precious to say no to. Alright, Emeril, what’re you making?”

“Who’s Emeril?”

“Nevermind, just...” Tony waves in the general direction of the oven, feeling exceedingly old.

“Fine. I’m making spaghetti,” Peter admits. Tony groans. “Come on, Mr. Stark, my aunt’s Italian, it’ll be good!”

“My _mom_ was Italian,” Tony reminds him, grinning. There’s a moment of silence.

“Alright, fine, you probably shouldn’t get your hopes up too high. The sauce is from a jar.”

Tony laughs, loudly. He can do this, he thinks as he hears Peter clanging around the kitchen. He can make this work.

When Peter’s finished, he brings a bowl over to Tony. Tony hears him set it down in front of him and then feels Peter’s steady hands on his. He guides them to the bowl, over the fork, to the glass of water he’s set out, so that Tony knows where everything is. It’s such a small gesture, one that would have completely escaped Tony’s mind had their roles been reversed ( _thank Heaven their roles aren’t reversed_ ). Then he sits down and eats his own portion like it was nothing. Tony sits in stunned silence for a moment, surprisingly touched.

The spaghetti is decent. The company is better, pulling Tony’s attention away from the darkness that is so suddenly his world, but that’s not surprising. Peter has always been radiant.

It isn’t until after dinner that things get a little tricky. They would go back down to the lab, but Peter admits that he’s a bit stuck, that they have to wait for FRIDAY to run about a thousand different simulations to progress any further. They would also watch a movie, as they so often did, but... well, watching anything isn’t really in Tony’s wheelhouse at the moment, and Peter’s hesitant to suggest it.

“You know what probably has hilarious audio description?” Tony asks suddenly, and he feels Peter perk up with interest where he’s sitting next to him on the couch. “The old Star Trek movies.”

The descriptions are mildly amusing. Not quite enough to make up for not being able to see, but Peter leaning into his side helps.

The kid makes it through “The Wrath of Khan” and half of “Voyage Home” before he’s asleep, just like Tony planned it. He didn’t want Peter waiting up until FRIDAY finished her simulations at two or so in the morning.

Tony shifts around to get more comfortable. He could just leave Peter here on the couch and go to bed himself, but Peter’s steady breathing is the only break in the silence, and Tony doesn’t think he could handle omnipresent darkness _and_ persistent quiet. It’s fine. Waking up on the couch with Peter is becoming an honored tradition.

Peter snores lightly and Tony buries his smile in Peter’s hair. The smile fades as Tony stares uncomprehending toward where he thinks the TV is still illuminated.

He’s been trying not to brood all day, not while Peter has remained so insistently hopeful. But Peter’s soundly asleep now, and he’s always done his best ruminating in the stillness of night anyway.

What kind of demon drug can make someone go blind by inhaling a single lungful? Whatever it is, Tony doubts it’s reversible.

Despite many accusations to the contrary, Tony isn’t a pessimist. He isn’t. He’s a realist who lives in a crappy world where the worst-case scenario is more likely than any other.

He’s blind. He’s almost certainly going to stay blind. And he can deal with it, he _can_ , there’s just... hopes that he shouldn’t have let himself have dying away as the unseeing hours creep along. He’d wanted to see Pepper on their wedding day. He’d wanted to see Peter graduate from high school, from college, from grad school that he’ll certainly end up going to cause the kid is too brilliant to ever be satisfied.

He’ll never see Rhodey get the military honors he deserves, or Happy finally settle down. He’ll never see Peter grow into a man. If he has a child, he’ll never see their face.

The loss of it all sits like a burning coal in his sternum. His eyes sting with tears.

Peter snores again, his hand clutching at Tony’s sleeve. At least he still has this, Tony thinks as he settles further into the cushions. Peter’s head tips onto his chest, heavy over his heart. As long as he never loses this, he’ll be ok.

 

Peter groans as he wakes up, stretching a little bit where he’s squashed between the couch cushions and Tony. Tony pretends to still be asleep, trying not to smile. Just-woke-up Peter is one of his favorites; messy haired, sleep warm, squinting in the light, grumpier than usual. Tony finds it funny and absurdly endearing.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter croaks, half-heartedly poking Tony’s bicep. “We need to get to work.”

Tony opens his eyes. Darkness. Pitch black, all-encompassing night. He sucks in a sharp breath as his heartbeat picks up.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter asks, concern waking him up faster than usual. Tony hates it.

“I forgot,” Tony confesses, trying to keep his voice even.

He feels Peter shifting, finally managing to clamber up from the couch. He takes Tony’s hand, gently pulls him up.

“That’s ok,” Peter assures him, tugging him along, probably in the direction of the kitchen. “Little step up here. That’s ok, Mr. Stark. It’s a lot to get used to.”

The reassurance leaves a bitter taste in his mouth that doesn’t go away for a long time.

 

After Peter practically force-feeds him breakfast, he asks if Tony wants to take a shower before they go to the lab. Tony almost says no, but... he’ll have to eventually right? He can’t just stop showering because he doesn’t know how to without his eyesight. He hesitantly nods.

Peter agrees, leads him to his room by placing Tony’s hand on his shoulder and walking ahead of him. It makes him feel less like an infant learning to walk, and he’s grateful.

Peter comes into the bathroom with him and Tony is about to protest, vehemently, but Peter is quick to assure him. “Don’t worry, I’m just going to get everything that isn’t yours out of the shower, so you don’t accidently wash your hair with Pepper’s soap or something.”

Tony had admittedly not thought of that. He hears bottles being juggled a bit and then Peter passes him.

“Alright, I’ve arranged your stuff. Shampoo is closest to the faucet, conditioner in the middle, body wash furthest from it. Need anything else?”

“No. Thanks, kid.” Tony hears the door close. He waits a minute to make sure he did actually hear that, then proceeds to carefully inch toward to the shower and grope for the faucet.

It takes him longer than usual to shower, but he manages fine. When he shuts the water off, he hears Peter hesitantly call for him.

“For heaven’s sake, Pete, I do not need help getting out of the shower,” Tony yells.

“Good, cause I wasn’t offering,” Peter says. “I laid out some clothes for you on your bed. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re done.”

Tony blinks a bit. This kid is surprisingly thoughtful. Once again, picking out clothes had not occurred to Tony, and he imagines it would have been a bit of a disaster. Even getting dressed with pre-selected clothes is a bit of challenge. Once he’s sure he has every item on the correct way, he makes his way to the kitchen, trailing one hand along the wall.

Peter takes him down to the lab, then. FRIDAY’s simulation results are waiting for them, and Peter must pull them up instantly because he goes really quiet.

“Well, FRI, what do you have for us?” Tony asks, carefully lowering himself into a chair.

“The results indicate that the purpose of the drug was not to blind you, but rather to inhibit rea—”

FRIDAY cuts off.

“What?” Tony’s voice sounds weird in his head. Strangely absent, like echoes rather than real words. “What?” he says, raising his voice to try to hear himself better.

The only answer is silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do kids still know who Emeril is? No, right?
> 
> There will be two more chapters, probably about the same length as this. I just didn't want to post all at once cause I know a 10k word fic can be kind of daunting.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, please let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

“Well, FRI, what do you have for us?” Tony asks, carefully lowering himself into a chair.

“The results indicate that the purpose of the drug was not to blind you, but rather to inhibit rea—”

FRIDAY cuts out.

“What?” Tony’s voice sounds weird in his head. Strangely absent, like echoes rather than real words. “What?” he says, raising his voice to try to hear himself better.

The only answer is silence.

 

* * *

 

 

Something is happening. Something is happening and Tony can’t freaking see, but the weird thing is he can’t hear sounds of distress, alarms or explosions or...

“Peter? Peter, where are you?” he calls, anxiety ripping through him as the silence continues. Was this the point of the drug? Take Tony out of commission and then organize an attack against him? But that drug lord, he wasn’t ambitious enough for this, he wouldn’t—

There’s a hand on his shoulder and Tony activates his wrist-watch gauntlet but he doesn’t know where to fire or _where Peter is_.

And then the sound turns back on again.

“-ark, calm down! Everything’s fine, we’re fine,” Peter is soothing into his ear. Tony recognizes the feeling of his hand now—long-fingered, steady, always a little cold.

Oh.

“Right,” he says, swallowing hard as he disengages his gauntlet. Now that he realizes what happened he is absolutely mortified.

His hearing had gone out. Just like his sight. He was going to lose that, too.

“Sorry.” Peter guides him back into his chair. “I uh... I couldn’t hear for a second and... thought...”

Peter saves him from finishing that humiliating sentence.

“It’s fine, Mr. Stark. It’s understandable,” Peter assures him, his hand sliding down Tony’s arm until he can take his hand. Tony gets the vague impression that Peter is crouching in front of him and his eyebrows furrow, confused. “Did you... did you hear everything FRIDAY said, Mr. Stark?”

“No. I didn’t hear most of it,” Tony says. His heartbeat is starting to pick up because the kid’s voice was quiet and grave, and he’s still holding Tony’s hand.

“Ok. We figured out what the drug is doing.”

“Right.” He knew that part. Why was Peter taking so long to tell him?

“The drug is suppressing reactions in your nervous system. We think the loss of your sight, and apparently your hearing, are the first symptoms. It’s shutting down the peripheral nervous system before it moves on to the central.” Peter’s voice is so hesitant, so shaky. Even though the bad news is meant for Tony, he feels an immediate urge to comfort the kid. He reaches out, searching fingertips finding the fringe of Peter’s hair. He smooths it away from Peter’s forehead.

“It’s going to kill me,” he deduces. That’s what happens when your nervous system shuts down. When your brain shuts down. There’s no getting around that.

“It’s going to try.”

The steel is back in Peter’s voice. He captures Tony’s other hand as it traces along his cheek, squeezes them both.

“I’m not going to let it.”

 

His hearing goes faster than his sight. He knows that’s a Bad Thing since the end result of this will be death. Moving through the steps quickly is probably not good.

When he’d been going blind, he still had sound to ground him. He could still talk to Peter even if he couldn’t see him. It was easier to stay calm, relaxed. Keep his head above water. 

The lapses come fast. He hardly has time to come up for air between them.

The second one comes twenty minutes after the first. Tony spends the time with his hands clenched around the arms of his chair, trying to remind himself to breathe. The feeling of the metal under his hands is the only thing in the world besides his rapid heartbeat.

When it ends, he only hears the buzz of machines.

“Peter?” he whispers, and even that seems loud.

“I’m right here,” Peter assures him. He comes close enough that Tony can feel his body heat.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this to you,” Tony says lightly, hoping his joking tone will take some of the fear away, “but please don’t stop talking.”

“Ok,” Peter murmurs, his voice soft. “But don’t mock me for the incredibly nerdy things that I will inevitably talk about.”

Tony chuckles, feeling a little bit of the panic melting away.

Peter starts talking, and doesn’t stop. His voice is steady, his inflection amusing as he shares some of his more embarrassing Spider-Man escapades from before he met Tony. Tony’s laughing before he knows it, leaning back in his chair as he hears Peter bustling around the lab doing who knows what.

The silence comes back mid-word.

As much as Tony tells himself that he’s still sitting in the lab, that Peter is just a foot away still rambling on, his heart rate picks up.

It feels like he’s the only thing in the world. There is nothing beyond him and blackness and noiselessness.

There could be an attack on the tower and he would have no idea. Peter could stop breathing right next to him and he would just be sitting there, idle and useless. The entire world could come crashing down around him and Tony would merely feel the vibrations.

It’s a terror like he’s never experience. A primal fear. He felt exposed, vulnerable. It’s survival of the fittest; the weakest animals get eaten. And that’s him.

Sound comes rushing back and he’s in the lab again.    

The first thing he hears is his own harsh panting. Peter is sitting close to him, he can tell, chattering to himself like Tony had asked.

“—and then Ned was like ‘hey, what if Iron Man showed up—‘” he cuts off as Tony reaches for him, fumbling for the sleeve of his shirt. “Oh, hey, you’re back.”

Tony tips forward into Peter. The kid reacts instinctively, catching Tony and pulling his head down onto his narrow shoulder.

“Mr. Stark?” He sounds scared and Tony feels guilty, but he’s scared, too.

“It’s like the world stops existing,” Tony whispers. Peter is quiet for a moment, his arms curled protectively around Tony’s shoulders.

“I’ll stay with you, Tony. I promise.”

Peter’s voice, he decides, is his favorite sound in the world.

 

Peter holds his hand throughout his entire next episode. He feels like a child, clinging to Peter for comfort, but the touch is so grounding, so reassuring, he doesn’t let go.

 

It takes just over three hours for Tony to go completely deaf. Compared to the ten hours it took for him to lose his sight, it’s nothing. It doesn’t give him time to process, to adjust. Where he had accepted his permanent blindness with quiet, if faked, bravery, when his hearing blinks out for good it takes him nearly thirty minutes to stop shaking.

Peter is so understanding it’s almost annoying. Because Tony is proud and would never ever _ask_ for Peter to stay within arms reach at all times, to purposefully brush against Tony’s side as he worked just to reassure him he was there, to occasionally take Tony’s hand or touch his shoulder. He would never ask and he’s humiliated that Peter knows it’s what he wants anyway. But he thinks about Peter leaving, about being trapped in this senseless world without him, and the embarrassment shrivels under the weight of his gratitude.

Peter takes his hand again, turns it palm side up. _HUNGRY?_ He taps out in Morse Code, drawing the question mark with the tip of his finger. He always drew the question mark. It made Tony laugh the first time he’d done it, so he kept going.

“Sure,” Tony says. He can’t hear his own voice. It’s weird. He feels his vocal chords moving, his mouth forming the word, but there’s no noise. Peter always responds as if he heard, though, so he assumes he is actually speaking. He tries his best to speak quietly—he doesn’t want to be shouting at Peter all day without realizing it, like someone with headphones in and their music too loud.

Peter takes his wrist and leads him out of the lab with Tony’s hand on his shoulder, like he had that morning. Peter has fixed Tony’s wristband, changed it so instead of beeping it grows warm if he’s about to run into something, but it’s still easier to be led.

He sits at the counter while Peter makes them sandwiches. He talks, gets short messages drummed onto his arm in return. He’s calmer, now, than he has been for the past few hours, and it’s a nice break.

Peter puts a sandwich in front of him, guides Tony’s hands toward it. He thinks the kid sits right next to him, is pretty sure he can feel the air moving around him.

“You know, I don’t remember the last time I had three meals in a day. It’s weird,” Tony says.

 _IT’S HEALTHY_ , Peter replies. _EAT._

Tony smirks at Peter’s mother henning. He must have picked that up from May.

After lunch, Tony expects Peter to take him back down to the lab, but they only walk a little way before Peter is pushing Tony down onto a couch. He sits next to him, so close their shoulders are nearly overlapping. Tony doesn’t even consider pushing him away.

“What are we doing?”

 _ASL_. Tony blinks.

“You know I can’t _see_ , right?” He gets a smack on the arm for that. Peter takes his hand and flattens it out. There’s a few minutes pause as Peter obviously looks up the alphabet online.

He beings to teach Tony, pressing each letter into Tony’s palm and letting him feel around, so he understands each letter before moving on to the next one.

Tony almost tells him there’s no point. He’s going to die, fairly soon probably. But he’s pretty much at Peter’s whim at the moment, and if Peter wants to teach him the American Sign Language alphabet, that’s fine by him. Peter’s pressed warm against his side, and Tony can picture the focused face he’s making as he slowly shapes the letters. If he concentrates, goes back in his memory, he can recall Peter’s laugh to match the way the boy shakes next to him at Tony’s sassy commentary.

Peter laughs again as Tony insists repeatedly that ‘M’ and ‘N’ are the exact same shape. Peter’s shaking his head, lightly smacking Tony’s arm as he forms the two letters over and over to show Tony the difference, but he’s laughing. Tony smiles as Peter finally moves on to ‘O.’

Once Peter’s gone through the whole alphabet three times and Tony has mimicked it back to him, Peter stops. He doesn’t move for a moment, just tips his head onto Tony’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Tony mutters, laying his cheek down on Peter’s head. Peter nods against him, plays absently with Tony’s fingers. He can practically feel the shift in the air, from happy and laughing to melancholy and desperate.

Peter buries his face against Tony’s collar, takes three deep breaths. Then he stands, pulls Tony up with him, and gets back to work.

 

Peter seems more determined after lunch. He brushes past Tony more as he whirls through the lab, doing whatever it is he’s trying to fix this. He asks Tony a few questions, but it’s hard when every word takes almost a minute to type out into Tony’s skin. Neither of them are good enough at Morse to go faster. Tony answers as best he can, but when he can’t see what the kid can, he’s often confused by Peter’s questions.

Once, maybe an hour and a half after their meal, Peter reaches over and takes Tony’s hand with shaky hands and just sits like that for a minute. Tony asks what’s wrong but doesn’t get an answer. The hand leaves, slightly steadier, and Tony is left sitting and wondering.

He’s left to his thoughts, a lot, and he hates it. He almost hates that he doesn’t know if he should be upset that he’s dying or not. Being alive and deaf and blind is better than being dead and he _knows that_. He doesn’t doubt that at all. But if it’s going to get worse... He’s only down two senses and he’s already more lost, more afraid than he’s been in possibly his entire life. What if touch goes next? He won’t have anything to ground him, then. Not Peter’s strong hands, not the cool metal of the workbench top that he grips onto when he feels dizzy, not even the feeling of his feet on the ground.

He thinks back suddenly to MIT, helping Rhodey study for the philosophy class he had to take for a humanities credit. Flipping absently through flashcards, quizzing Rhodes as they sit on the floor of their apartment, a bag of chips and a two-liter of soda that they take turns sipping out of between them.

_According to Avicenna, if a man is deprived of all stimulation—sight, sound, touch—does he know he exists?_

Tony doesn’t remember the answer.

 

Tony’s phone buzzes against his leg and he jumps about a mile. He fishes it out, fumbling, and holds it out to Peter, who takes it from him. He’s gone for several minutes. Tony remembers, feeling a little sick, that Pepper had promised to call.  

Peter comes back and gently presses the phone back into Tony’s hand. _PEPPER_ , he taps out.

“Right. Thanks, kid.” He raises the phone to his ear.

Stupidly, he waits for her to talk first. And then he remembers, curses himself, and takes a deep breath.

“Hey, Pep,” he says. It’s a very odd sensation, holding a phone up to his ear and not hearing anything on the other line. It feels like he’s pretending, like he used to do (only occasionally) to get out of exceptionally boring meetings.

“Um, I’m sure Peter already told you that I can’t hear. And why. And what’s going to happen next. I, uh... I doubt I’m getting ahead of myself by assuming you’ll be on the next flight home. I’m not really sure... what all will be going on when you get here. It’s a long flight, and this came on pretty fast, so...”

He trails off. He aches to hear her voice so badly he almost can’t speak himself. And the thought of what she’ll come home to makes him want to throw up. Will he even be able to feel her skin? Smell her perfume?

Will he even be alive?

He clears his throat and plunges back in. “Anyway, I just wanted to say, since I’m not sure I’ll be... I just wanted to say I love you. So much, Pepper. And I’ll—well, I won’t _see_ you, but you’ll be home tomorrow and I’ll be here and... good grief.” He imagines her laughing over the phone, but then thinks that she’s probably crying instead. “I’m going to go now. Have a safe flight, honey.”

Tony presses where he hopes the ‘end call’ button is and then sits in silence, holding the phone in limp hands.

Peter doesn’t come to take it for a few minutes, so Tony assumes he left to give Tony privacy. He appreciates the thought, but he’s glad Peter’s back. The silence has been stretching on, uninterrupted by Peter’s hand on his shoulder, long enough.

Peter pulls the phone from his hands, almost hesitantly squeezes the back on Tony’s neck, like Tony does to him all the time to reassure him. Tony offers him a forced half-smile, knows Peter doesn’t buy it as anything even resembling happiness.

Peter goes back to work, and Tony keeps sitting there with nothing but his thoughts. He’s really getting tired of that.

 

Their rhythm is disturbed sooner than Tony thought it would be. He has no idea what time it is, but it seems too early for dinner, so why is Peter grabbing his wrists, yanking him to his feet?

On second thoughts, there’s no way Peter is literally _running_ to go make them dinner.

“Pete, what’s wrong?” Tony asks, his heartbeat spiking with Peter’s contagious fear.

He doesn’t get an answer. In fact, Peter lets go of him.

“Peter?” He reaches a hand out, tries to find him. He takes a few steps forward, annoyed by how shaky and tentative they are when something is clearly wrong and it’s his job to protect Peter. “Kid, come back over here right freaking now so I know you’re ok.”

A hand catches his still extended one, jerks him around. Tony’s worry lessens considerably; he knows the feeling of Peter’s hands now. But there’s clearly still something wrong.

“Talk to me, tell me what’s happening,” Tony snaps as Peter shepherds him in one direction, pushing him down onto what feels like the living room couch.

 _STAY._ Peter frantically presses into his palm. _PLEASE_.

“What?” Tony gasps, standing. Peter tries to push him back down and Tony bats his arm away. “What’s _happening_ , Peter?”

 _NEED ME_ is the only answer he gets.

“Kid, who needs you? What’s wrong?” He’s getting annoyed, repeating himself so often and getting no answers.

“Pete! Come back here right now!” He’s gone, Tony knows he’s gone, probably swinging away right now.

“You could get hurt, kid,” Tony says, quieter, and then swears.

“FRIDAY, get me a—” he cuts off. He would be worse than useless out there in a metal suit. Nothing but a big target. He swears again, more vehemently.

“Get one of the Iron Legion down there, wherever Peter is. If he gets so much as a broken fingernail, you pull him the heck out, understand?”

She doesn’t answer, but he assumes she obeys.

Which leaves him with nothing to occupy his thoughts. He can’t help, he can’t tinker, he can’t blast his music. All his usual coping mechanisms are gone.

So he paces. He starts with big circles, but ends up kicking a chair leg. He limps around, spewing vitriol and nursing his foot. He gets less ambitious after that, merely walking the length of the couch over and over, one hand trailing along the back.

He gets dizzy after a little while, stops at one end of the couch. He stands still for a moment, adrenaline and anger running through his veins, then seizes the lamp that he knows sits on the end-table and chucks it across the room.

It’s much less satisfying when you can’t hear the crash.

After that, he just sits. Sits and thinks and stresses, pulling at his hair, running a hand over his overgrown goatee. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since Peter left, so he doesn’t know the level of freaking-out he should be at now.

Finally, _finally_ , there are hands on his knees, someone leaning against his shins.

“ _Peter_ ,” Tony breathes. He lurches forward, feeling for Peter, finding his shoulders and tracing them up until he’s cupping Peter’s face. “Please tell me you’re alright, kid.”

 _OK_ , Peter taps into the wrist he’s holding. _OK. SORRY._

“Dang skippy you’re sorry,” Tony snaps. He doesn’t trust Peter’s assessment of his health—the kid tries to hide injuries when Tony can literally see him limping, he doubts he’ll confess when he has such good chances of getting away with it. He starts running his hands through Peter’s hair, checking for bumps or blood. “You couldn’t take two freaking seconds and tell me what was happening?”

 _LONG STORY_.

Tony growls. Peter seems concussion free, so Tony moves back to his face. He thumbs over Peter’s eyelids, making sure they aren’t swollen and therefore bruised. He checks Peter’s nose; not broken. Peter’s jaw; unbruised. There’s no blood anywhere.

“You’ve got time,” Tony says. He feels Peter sigh exasperatedly against his legs. “Yeah, yeah, I know, you like having your own life, you’re not a kid. Get on with it.”

He runs his hands over Peter’s shoulders, makes sure they’re not dislocated.

 _GAS TRUCK TIPPED ON BRIDGE_ , Peter dutifully starts out. Tony presses against each of his ribs to make sure none of them give.

 _CAUGHT FIRE. EVACUATED PEOPLE BEFORE IT_ , here he takes Tony’s hands and uses them to mimic an explosion. Tony smiles at the action.

“Get ‘em all?” Tony asks, his check-up now done. He keeps his hand on Peter’s chest, feeling him breathing steadily.

Peter lifts Tony’s other hand, holds it to his face while he nods, a smile curving his cheek.

“Good boy.” He means it, a rush of pride filling him. Peter’s smile grows and he leans into Tony’s palm. He must be getting tired after the adrenaline rush, Tony thinks as Peter sits back on his heels and presses his forehead to Tony’s knee.

“Time is it?” Tony asks, quietly.

Peter writes the time on Tony’s hand. _7:15_.

“Let’s order in tonight. So you don’t have to cook,” Tony suggests. Peter nods again. He’s leaning more heavily against Tony’s leg, like he’s content to fall asleep right there.

“Come on, kid, if you’re going to nap, at least come up here.” Peter groans. Tony can feel the vibration of it against his leg. “Yes, come on.”

He puts his hands under Peter’s arms and tugs him up. Peter clambers onto the couch, immediately laying down and pressing his face into Tony’s stomach. Worry and sleepiness; the two sure-fire ways to get Peter to act like an octopus. Tony scratches at his scalp with one hand, rubs his back with the other.

He closes his eyes, content to rest with Peter’s heartbeat thudding under his hand. FIRDAY will wake Peter up when the food gets here.

As Peter drifts on, Tony realizes that ever since Peter had come back, he hasn’t thought about his new disabilities once. And what’s more, he was so focused on making sure Peter was alright, he forgot to be frightened. For the first time all day, he’s at peace. He smiles into the darkness.

 _Thanks, kid_. _Even if you are giving me gray hairs._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I headcanon that Peter and Tony talk to each other in Morse Code. I wrote a drabble about it, in fact, so if you want a much fluffier, much shorter Morse Code based fic, you can find that at http://madasthesea.tumblr.com/post/175893855179/i-actually-wrote-some-fluff-what-is-happening
> 
> I was very much not planning on ending the chapter here, but it felt good. The next chapter might be super long because of that, but that's fine. I'll still just keep this to three chapters. 
> 
> Again, if I have handled the more sensitive topics (blindness, deafness) poorly, please let me know how to fix it and I will.
> 
> Thank you for the comments from last chapter! Let me know what you thought about this one!


	3. Chapter 3

As Peter drifts off, Tony realizes that ever since Peter had come back, he hasn’t thought about his new disabilities once. And what’s more, he was so focused on making sure Peter was alright, he forgot to be frightened. For the first time all day, he’s at peace. He smiles into the darkness.

 _Thanks, kid_. _Even if you are giving me gray hairs._

* * *

 

Peter gets up some time later, startling Tony from a light doze. He stays on the couch, assuming Peter will come fetch him once he has their dinner laid out.

A hand touches his arm a minute later. Tony jerks away from it, instantly on high alert. The hand is too calloused, too wide to be Peter’s.

“Who is that?” he asks. He knows he must look half-crazy, staring around the room with wide, unseeing eyes. He is absurdly ashamed of his own terror.

The hand hesitantly returns, tapping on his arm just like Peter did.

_RHODES._

“Rhodey?” Tony sighs. “You gave me a heart attack.”

Under any other circumstances, Rhodey would have made a joke about him being old. Tony hates that this stupid drug has deprived him of that too.

 _SORRY_ is all he gets.

“Pete call you?” Tony tries to be quiet, hopes Peter is in the kitchen and can’t hear him.

 _YEAH_.

“How is he?”

He can almost see Rhodey shaking his head with that little half-smile he gets whenever Tony’s “dad side” (his words, not Tony’s) comes out.

_WORRIED._

Tony knows that, was able to hear it in his voice, has been able to feel it in Peter’s hands. He sighs.

“You’ll... you’ll look after him, right? If we can’t fix this?”

Tony has been so overwhelmed with being deaf and blind, so swept away in his own emotion, that he hasn’t spared much thought to what happens after. After he’s lost all his senses, after he can’t think or move or breathe, he’ll be dead. And Peter will be alone. And suddenly, asking Rhodey to take care of him seems like the most important thing in the world.

“Promise me, Rhodes. He gets in so much trouble, he always dives in head first and gets hurt, like a _lot_ and—”

Rhodey covers both of Tony’s hands with his, stilling him.

 _I WILL. BUT WE’LL FIX THIS_.

Tony stops paying attention after the ‘I will.’ Everyone else in his life will be fine; they’ve all known he’s going to die early, before they want him to. It won’t make it easier, but at least it won’t be unexpected. Peter, on the other hand... Peter and his undying optimism, his determination to save _everyone_. His already crippling losses.

He doesn’t think Peter will handle his death very well. The thought makes him sick.

“He’s a handful,” Tony tries to joke.

 _SO ARE YOU_ , Rhodes says, and Tony gets the message. _I managed to deal with you in your worst years, I can handle a superpowered kid with a hero complex._ It’s probably true, but Tony still scoffs.

Their conversation is interrupted by another set of hands on his arm. It’s Peter this time, Tony knows immediately. He turns his face towards where he thinks Peter is, sending him what he hopes is a comforting smile.

Peter leads Tony through their usual mealtime routine; sitting him down, brushing Tony’s hands over his food so he knows where it is. It’s more embarrassing with Rhodey watching, for some reason. It feels like, now that they are being observed, Tony needs to be fulfilling his role as caretaker, rather than being taken care of. For really the first time, he strains against the notion of being helped. He knows both Rhodey and Peter would be annoyed that he’s thinking like that, but his cheeks still flush as Peter gives his hand one last squeeze before letting go.

 

After dinner, Rhodey and Peter bring him down to the lab. He assumes Peter is showing Rhodey what he’s come up with so far, asking for help. Tony doubts Rhodey will be much help—he’s an engineer, not a biochemist, but new eyes are always useful. Tony does his best to entertain himself by reciting the periodic table in his head. It’s surprisingly difficult. He purses his lips.

 _I really am getting old_.

Peter keeps up his habit of touching Tony every few minutes. Rhodey joins in, patting his shoulder every once in a while. It’s less humiliating than needing help eating, and it really does help keep him centered in his body. Without it, he forgets. His head swims as if he’s falling. He pictures the lab he’s sitting in and feels like a giant one second, absolutely tiny the next. And then Peter will take his hand and he’s pulled back to himself, until he lets go. And it starts all over.

It’s weird, knowing that conversation is going on around you and having absolutely no idea what it’s about. He doesn’t even have body language, tone, volume to give him a clue. It’s worse than if they were speaking a different language.

Someone bumps into his chair, sends it spinning a little bit. It’s Rhodey, he realizes, as the man squeezes his shoulder in apology. Peter would have rubbed his arm.

“Geez,” Tony jokes, “watch where you’re going.”

The hand on his shoulder freezes.

“Rhodey, I’m kidding, it’s fine.”

Rhodey doesn’t move his hand. And now Peter’s there, too, touching Tony’s knee as he hovers, probably crouching in front of him.

“What’s going on?” Tony asks, turning his head as if he was looking between the two of them.

Peter’s hand clenches tight around his. Rhodey answers.

_NO SOUND._

“What?” Tony is thoroughly confused. What doesn’t have sound?

Rhodey taps Tony’s throat, making him jump.

 _NO VOICE_ , he amends.

 _Of course,_ Tony thinks first. _The nervous system controls speech._ And then, _Oh, lord, not that, too._

He swallows thickly, nods mechanically. Rhodey rubs his back.

Tony scrunches his eyes closed, gritting his teeth as he pulls his hand from Peter’s so that he can drop his head onto his palms. He is dangerously close to crying. It’s ridiculous that this is what should make him fully lose his composure, when he’s already lost his sight and hearing. But Tony was always the one with the one liner, the witty comeback. He gave the last minute plans, the lectures to bright-eyed students, the advice to a certain young hero. More often than not, he spoke his creations to life.

And now... now he’s as silent as the rest of the world.

Peter’s hand disappears slowly from his knee. After a moment, Rhodey taps against Tony’s neck.

_JUST US. IT’S OK._

He’s sent Peter away so that Tony can break down without Peter seeing. Tony would say thank you, but... He just lets himself fall apart instead. Rhodey stays with him, steady hands keeping constant contact as Tony gasps for breath, as he shakes and shakes.

As much as Tony loves Peter, he’s so grateful Rhodey is here. He needs this, the opportunity to let go and mourn his own destruction. And he never would allow himself this catharsis in front of Peter _because_ he loves him, and this would scare him, would hurt him. He’s glad Rhodey had him leave.

He’s even more glad when, after Tony has regained control of himself, Peter comes back and immediately makes himself at home in Tony’s arms. Peter’s breathing is even, his arms steady where they wind around Tony’s waist. He’s comforting Tony here, and Tony lets him: he buries his nose in Peter’s hair and quietly mourns the loss of this, too.

 _IT’S LATE,_ Peter informs him where he’s still curled against Tony.

 _IS IT?_ Tony asks, purposely drawing the question mark just to feel the huff of breath Peter let’s out when he feels it.

_11:15. BED?_

Tony knows Peter well enough to know he doesn’t mean for himself. He wants Tony to go to sleep so he can work without feeling guilty about not paying to him.

Tony desperately does not want to leave Peter. The thought of laying alone in his room, nothing but black silence to keep him company is enough to make his heart start beating faster. But the only hope of ever having another night like this, another moment of stillness where he can be allowed to just hold Peter, relies on the kid finding a solution. So he nods.

 

It’s as bad as he thought it would be. His mattress is too soft to provide any real anchor. He considers sleeping on the floor, just to feel something solid, but dismisses it. Peter would think he was crazy when he inevitably came to check on him at some point.

His mind wanders as he tries to sleep. The darkness feels slippery on his skin, like he’s moving through it. Tipping, tilting, falling through to the center of the earth. The air clings to him, hissing inside his head as it whips him along. His head is no longer attached to his body, each limb disconnected from the rest. Even his thoughts are drifting apart, neurons firing into an empty void.

It feels like being unmade.

_If a man is deprived of all stimulation, does he know he exists?_

 

He can feel the cloth over his head. The zip-ties around his wrists.

 _No. No, I got out. I got out_.

He opens his eyes, desperate to prove himself wrong. The cloth they used this time is thicker than the last one, better secured. It doesn’t let a drop of light in. It’s black as pitch and Tony is still a hostage.

His airways nearly close with his panic, his heart thrumming like a hummingbird in his chest.  

There’s no hope of breaking his bonds, but he struggles against his captor’s hold anyway, just to let them know he’s still fighting. The man holding him throws him down to the ground and he falls forward, unable to catch himself. They haul him back to his knees, holding him there. This is where they rip off the bag, blind him with sunlight. That’s what always happens.

That isn’t what happens. Instead, he hears scuffling to his right. The bag muffles the noise, but he can hear most of what’s happening.

Tony recognizes the rough voice of Raza, the leader of the Ten Rings, as he barks an order. There’s a crunch, like knuckles meeting someone’s face, and a grunt.

Whoever was just hit mutters something irreverent. Tony can’t hear the words, but he jerks at the voice.

_No. No, no no no, he can’t be here, not him, please please not him._

Tony tries to still his breath so he can hear better.

“You are too much like Stark, little spider,” the leader says in heavily accented English.

**_No_.**

“Peter!” Tony shouts. No sound comes out. Not even a whisper. He tries again. “Peter! Peter!”

Nothing. No way of letting Peter know he was there, no way to comfort him.

He struggles against his bonds more, only to get a punch to the face for his efforts. His ears ring but he shakes the sensation away. He needs to hear what happens to Peter.

Peter says something else. Again, his voice is too quiet to make out. Strange, when Raza’s voice was so clear.

“For that, little one, you will get the same punishment as him.”

Punishment? They couldn’t be talking about the arc reactor. So, waterboarding? Tony feels sick at the thought, tries again to call to Peter, tell him that it’ll be ok, that Tony will be there when it’s over. He’ll hold him while he retches water, while he shivers and gasps. He’ll be alright. Tony will make sure of that.

“Get the knife,” Raza says.

_Knife?_

He’s going to cut Peter’s tongue out.

The thought comes so calmly Tony doesn’t even question it. Of course that’s what he’ll do. That had been Tony’s punishment for mouthing off. He forgets sometimes. That’s why he can’t speak.

But to do that to Peter, to _his_ Peter? Unacceptable.

He yells insults and curses and pleas. He makes no sound.

He can hear clear as day as Peter screams and screams. As the screams get cut off as he chokes on viscous blood. 

He hears Peter’s body hit the ground. _Most people bleed out_ , _Stark_ , they’d told him as they’d thrown him back into the cave. _You’re lucky_.

Peter wasn’t.

And Tony is silent the whole time.

 

He’s tumbling from the bed almost before he’s awake. His mouth tastes like blood and for a minute he thinks, honestly thinks, that he did lose his tongue in that cave in Afghanistan.

His legs get tangled in the sheets and he falls to the floor, biting the inside of his cheek. Pain flares and he realizes he must have bit it in his sleep, can taste the blood when he probes it with his not-missing tongue.

It doesn’t matter. He needs Peter.

He kicks the blankets off, stumbles to his feet. He’s not sure he’s even going towards the door, but he’s lucky. He finds the knob after only a moment of frantic groping, yanks it open. He’s running through the halls and he knows the layout of this place, has lived here for years, but still manages to have no idea where he’s going.    

He can feel the heat on his wrist warning him, but can’t seem to register it. He crashes into a corner, rebounds off and barely puts a hand out in time to stop from ramming into the opposite wall.

He stumbles a few more steps, clinging to the wall, until a door-knob strikes his hip. The surprise unbalances him more than the pain. He slumps to the ground and stays there, gasping.

The breath doesn’t register in his lungs and he wonders if he’s lost the ability to sense that, too.

Tony almost laughs thinking about his usual technique to get through panic attacks.

 _Five things you can see._ Dark. Dark. Dark. Dark. Dark.

 _Four things you can hear._ Silence. Nothing. Not even his own voice. Not even his heartbeat.

Gentle hands on his shoulders. _Peter_.

He doesn’t need to see to know how to hold Peter. He pulls him in without fumbling, buries a shaking hand in his hair.

There are no words that can calm him down, now. He thinks Peter’s speaking anyway, can feel it vibrating in his chest.

FRIDAY must have told him Tony was stumbling wildly through the halls. He would be embarrassed, but that’s what he’d wanted when he left his room.

 _Three things you can feel._ Peter’s t-shirt bunched in his fist. Peter’s hair sliding between his fingers. Peter’s ribs expanding with each breath.

He’s steadily calming down, crumpled in the hallway with Peter half in his lap. It is, once again, absolutely humiliating, but he can’t seem to feel the embarrassment around the relief.

Peter’s still talking, he thinks. Talking, breathing. Crying.

Tony’s heart stops in his chest.

_What? No, no no no. Peter._

He’s definitely crying. His chest has started to spasm in Tony’s hold as he sobs, tears pooling in the hollow of Tony’s collarbone.

Tony presses him as close as possible, praying that if he could just hold Peter tight enough he could know, by some parental instinct, what he’s saying, what’s making him twist Tony’s t-shirt in his hands tight enough to tear it.

 _Don’t cry_ , he aches to say, but he knows the words will get lost on the way to his mouth. _Please don’t cry, Peter. I’ll fix it._

Except he can’t fix it. He can’t even hear it. And while he would give anything, _anything_ , to make Peter’s tears stop, he is impotent. Worse, he is _needy_.

He could cry from his own frustration.

 _SORRY_ , he drums into the back of Peter’s neck. _I’M SORRY._

_You shouldn’t have to take care of me. It’s my job to take care of you and I’m failing._

Peter shakes his head against Tony’s shoulder, pushes himself further into Tony’s arms. The action is enough for him to know that Peter doesn’t blame him for any of this. It’s a small reassurance, but it helps.

Carefully taking Peter’s head in his hands, he raises it from his shoulder until they’re facing each other. Gosh, he wishes he could see his face.

Tony brushes his thumbs under Peter’s eyes, wiping away the tears as best he can. He feels Peter’s damp eyelashes flutter shut against the pads of his thumbs. His chest aches a little bit. Peter’s jaw is moving under his hands, but whatever he says is lost to him. Peter knows that.

Tony searches his mind, desperately trying to think of any way to make Peter stop crying. Without letting himself think about it too much, Tony does what his mother always did to cheer him up when he was upset as a child. He leans forward and brushes the tip of his nose against Peter’s repeatedly in an eskimo kiss. He feels Peter start laughing, his cheeks pushing up against Tony’s palms as he smiles.

 _Perfect. Now if only I could see you_.

Peter slouches forward and buries his face in the crook of Tony’s neck again. Tony can feel his smile like this, can track the way it slowly shrinks until it disappears entirely, far too soon for Tony’s liking.

After a few minutes where the only movement is Tony’s hand steadily rubbing Peter’s back, Peter taps _BED?_ against his arm. Tony shakes his head. He wants to stay with Peter, and he knows Peter won’t sleep tonight. _LAB?_ He draws both the question marks. Tony huffs a silent laugh and nods.

 

Rhodey’s been in the lab with Peter. When Tony walks in he comes over, takes Tony’s hand and leads him to the couch Tony keeps in the corner. Tony’s kind of bummed he’ll be further away from Peter, but Rhodey stays by him.

 _HE’S BRILLIANT,_ Rhodey tells him. Tony makes a show of smirking.

 _TOLD YOU_. Rhodey bumps their shoulders together and Tony smiles.

Peter’s somewhere in front of him, working his tail off to save Tony. While he wishes that he didn’t have to do that, the fact that he _is_ warms Tony from the stomach up into his chest.

There are worse ways to die.

 

Tony knew that at some point he’d have to get worse. He couldn’t just go from blind, deaf, and mute to braindead in the blink of an eye. There had to be a decline there somewhere.

He expects to lose the sense of touch. He thinks it takes his breath away the first time it happens, but he can’t feel the air entering his lungs, can’t tell if his ribs are expanding faster than they should be.

He is reduced to nothing but a consciousness in a sea of darkness. He knows thoughts, emotions. He knows that he is terribly alone.

He knows, logically, that he has a body, but there is no ownership, no connection. It is a separate entity. He knows that is dangerous. He needs his body to survive—a mind cannot exist without a receptacle, a container to protect it. He _has_ to feel, has to know where to send white blood cells and to clot cuts and to deliver oxygen to his fingers and toes he _has to feel. He needs a body he ne—_

He jerks back to himself to find Peter pressed into his side, their fingers laced together.

He is drumming, over and over into Tony’s other palm. _COME BACK. COME BACK._

 _HERE._ But he’s not sure he is.

 

He can feel his thoughts spinning away from him like sugar into candy floss. He feels strangely apathetic to it all, like an outside observer. Even the way Peter’s shaking next to him isn’t quite enough to stir concern. He tries. It’s like there’s a version of himself locked away in his mind, who knows how he _should_ be acting and rages against the locks in his mind that keep true cognizance, true emotion barred. But he is, in this too, powerless, and the flicker of protectiveness and worry die away before they are realized.

He didn’t expect the muscle spasms. Or the balance issues.

They come on just like the others had; brief warning periods at first, like the first few raindrops of a hurricane.

By the time Peter tugs him along to breakfast, Tony can barely walk. Even with his hand on Rhodey’s shoulder and Peter walking alongside him with an arm around his waist, Tony keeps bumping into the wall. It takes three tries for him to sit down because his body refuses to obey the order.

He eventually takes off the wristband Peter had worked so hard on, because even with the warning on his skin he usually can’t stop his trajectory into solid objects.

The worst part is that he can’t seem to muster up the energy to be annoyed, to be frightened by every new development. They chafe at him, but never bring on the crippling fear of even the night before. Even the concept seems foreign.

He will be dead, he thinks, within the day. He’ll never get to see Pepper again. Peter will watch him die.

The thought does not distress him anymore. It is merely a ripple in the lake of his mind.

He would be disgusted with himself if he could be.

Someone is always holding his hand now. He thinks it’s Rhodey, thinks Peter is probably pouring over any last minute, miracle solutions.

 

He stops being able to feel the hand in his and knows that he never will again.

 

 

 

_If a man is deprived of all sensation, does he know he exists?_

Tony knows the answer now.

He doesn’t exist.

Whether he knows is irrelevant.

 

 

 

He has shrunk to a lifeform the size of an atom, and will continue to shrink until he blinks out of reality.

He closes his eyes and waits for it to happen.

 

 

 

Imagine his confusion when he starts to think again.

 _What’s happening_?

Fear laces through him, sharp and fast, and he nearly startles.

_Peter? Where’s Peter?_

 

He feels pressure first. His hand is closed around something. He focuses on tightening the muscles in his fingers and almost laughs when he feels them obey him.

Heat comes next, and the realization that whatever he’s holding is moving, squeezing his own hand back. He thinks it’s Peter, simply because he wants it to be Peter.

Someone is also rubbing his arm vigorously, as if trying to warm him up. He feels all of it, the way their hand pushes the fabric of his sleeve, the heat they’re generating. He grins without telling each individual muscle to move and counts it as a victory.

 _TALK_.

Tony furrows his brows at the command, but opens his mouth.

“Peter?” he tries. The hands touching him seem to celebrate, clenching tighter at his fingers. Someone pats the side of his face.

_HERE._

“Holy crap. You can hear me?” Hot excitement is bubbling up from his chest. He doesn’t know if it feels more potent because of the lack from before, or if he’s just happier than he’s been in a long time.

Peter yanks Tony’s hand up to his face, presses it desperately to his cheek as he nods frantically. His cheek is curved in a smile.

Tony laughs. He’s leaning forward, his ecstatic surprise making it almost impossible to keep his seat.

And then—

“-ming back any minute. Let us know when you can hear us.”

It’s Peter’s voice. Peter’s wonderful, familiar voice that he never thought he’d hear again.

 _“Peter,”_ he breathes. He reaches his other hand towards Peter’s face. It is seized quickly, held up so that Tony’s cupping Peter’s jaw.

“You’re back,” Peter is whispering. “You’re back.”

“Rhodey?” Tony asks, turning his head to each side.

“Here, Tones,” Rhodey assures him, his hand steady on Tony’s shoulder.

“Oh my _gosh_ ,” Tony chokes out. “ _Oh my gosh_.”

He blinks out of mere habit and then flinches. There’s light. For the first time in over two days he sees something other than eternal black. He feels tears in his eyes and _does not care_.

After a moment, where Tony’s heart waits suspended between beats, the light refines into colors and shapes.

Peter’s there. His face framed in Tony’s shaking hands, his eyes bright with tears. He’s _beaming_ up at Tony and he is so beautiful.

“You fixed it?” Tony asks, voice trembling.

“We fixed it,” Peter confirms. A tear escapes the corner of his eye and Tony watches it’s path, feels it drip down his fingers.

Peter lets out a hiccupping laugh when Tony leans down and presses their foreheads together.

“Oh, you _brilliant_ boy,” Tony breathes.

Peter shrugs. “Dr. Cho did most of it,” he says, his cheeks burning a little bit under Tony’s hands. Tony pulls back, surprised.

“You called Helen?”

“I called everyone,” Peter says simply. “Anyone that could help.”

Tony doesn’t know what to say to that. He looks to Rhodey for support, who’s been watching silently with that same half-smile that he always gets when he sees him and Peter together.

“Kid’s being modest. Cho said it would have taken her at least a week without Peter,” Rhodey informs him. Tony grins at him.

“Doesn’t surprise me in the slightest,” Tony says. Rhodey chuckles, squeezes the back of Tony’s neck.

“It’s good to have you talking again, man.”

“Good to _be_ talking again.” He looks back at Peter, because he intends to never go more than a minute without seeing Peter’s face for the rest of his life. “Good to be doing anything.”

Peter’s still leaning into Tony’s palm, watching him like he’s content to stay like that. He meets Tony’s eyes and seems to come back to himself a little, sitting up straighter.

“Come on, Mr. Stark, we should get you some lunch and maybe a shower if you want one? Or a nap? You woke up really early this morning,” he starts rambling, jumping to his feet with enviable agility.

He reaches down out of habit to take Tony’s hand. Then he thinks better of it and shoves his hands in his pockets.

That’s when the awkwardness starts. The embarrassment seeping through the euphoria.

It comes on slowly. At the moment, Tony just chuckles, heaves himself off the couch with protesting muscles and follows Peter upstairs.

He takes him up on the offer to shower. He takes his time, enjoys shaving for the possibly the first time. By the time he’s back out in the kitchen Rhodey has made hamburgers for them all.

Tony can tell Peter does his best not to hover, but he still hops up to get Tony a drink of water, still takes his plate when he’s done. And Peter’s always been helpful, but Tony’s pride is beginning to catch up to him. The last few days of being clingy and needy are starting to irk him the more he thinks about them and it’s impossible not to think about them when Peter is still trying so hard to help.

By the end of lunch, Tony can’t look either of them in the face. He is _humiliated_. He imagines what he looked like, desperately clutching at the hand of a fifteen-year-old, weeping on the shoulder of his friend because he can’t talk. And worse yet, in those last hours, when he couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Just sitting there staring at nothing for hours on end.

So he does what he does best: distance himself. His first act is to pull out his phone and start typing.

A moment later, Peter’s phone chimes in his pocket and he takes it out curiously, taking a sip of his apple juice as he does.

Then he starts choking. Rhodey looks vaguely alarmed, Tony tries his best to remain aloof.

After a moment of catching his breath, Peter turns to him, baffled.

“Why the—” he hacks a couple more times “—did you just put a _thousand dollars_ in my bank account?” Rhodey instantly makes a face like he knows where this is going and it is not good.

“Compensation for your time and effort,” Tony answers coolly, looking back at his phone.

“What?” Peter sounds really confused.

“Babysitting money,” he says flatly.

He looks up just long enough to see Peter’s face go thunderous and Rhodey drop his head into his hands in exasperation. Tony clenches his jaw.

“I don’t want your money, Mr. Stark,” Peter snaps. He stands from the table. “You should know that.”

Tony does know that. He knows he’s being an idiot, but he doesn’t know how else to gain any control of the situation, how to distance himself from the absurdly intimate relationship he and Peter have built up through this whole ordeal.

When Tony doesn’t answer, Peter scowls.

“I’m going to bed,” he mutters. It’s three in the afternoon but no one stops him.

“Wow.” Tony looks at Rhodey. “That was low, even for you.”

“What else was I supposed to do?” Tony growls, his face flushing.

“Maybe say thank you?” Rhodey suggests tiredly.

“That’s not enough. For what he did for me, that’s not enough.” Tony’s tired too, exhausted actually, but the thought of going to sleep, of depriving himself of awareness again, makes him shiver.

“Ok, then, how about ‘Thank you, Peter, for saving my life and taking care of me. I love you, even if sometimes I suck at showing it and try to pay you instead of talking about feelings.’”

Tony glares at him. Rhodey stares straight back until Tony looks away.

“I’m going to the lab,” he says.

“Pepper will be home in two hours,” Rhodey tells him, but lets him go. He’s used to Tony by now.

 

FRIDAY greets him when he gets to the lab.

“Hello, boss. I’m glad you’re better.”

“Thanks, FRI,” he sighs, plopping down in his favorite chair. He looks around the lab for a moment, appreciating anew the machines and tech, the view from the large windows, the sun streaming in.

Peter has kept the lab surprisingly neat. There’s some evidence of his frantic research over the past few days, but it’s generally how Tony left it.

The guilt hits him hard. He knows he acted like a jerk, a mere hour after Peter had saved his life, had spent every moment by his side.

“Ok, give me the security tapes from the last three days,” he requests, rubbing his forehead.

“Of course, though I believe Peter would be rather embarrassed to know you watched these,” FRIDAY answers, already queuing them up.

“He can join the club,” Tony mutters. “Play them at triple speed, slow them down if something interesting happens. Only show the video with Peter in it, please.”

The video starts up and Tony settles in.

 

The first day isn’t too bad. Tony hadn’t needed too much help at that point. Peter looks at him a lot, sometimes stopping his work and just watching Tony babble from his chair with an undecipherable look on his face. Then he’ll go back to reading. His concentration face is as precious as Tony remembers it, even on the screen.

Time passes quickly on film. Tony watches them eat dinner in fast-forward, Peter puttering around as he cleans up. He watches Peter fall asleep on his shoulder.

“Fri, slow it down,” Tony says before he knows what he’s doing.

He watches the Tony on screen adjust the two of them so they’re laying down, Peter snuggling into Tony’s side with zero hesitation. He sees himself smile fondly into Peter’s hair, pulling the boy even closer.

He sniffs, looking away from the computer. “Keep going.” He isn’t sure why he’d stopped it. Or why his chest feels so tight.

The tape progresses.

Tony watches his own panic in the lab, him brandishing the gauntlet at absolutely nothing, Peter trying to bring him back to himself, reassurances pouring from him. He’s kneeling in front of Tony, looking stricken, his face pale.

Things get worse after that. Peter speeds around the lab, reading from three different screens at once. He works in an orbit around Tony, constantly looking over at him, his expression worried. Tony watches his hearing flicker out, watches himself reach out to Peter for comfort. Peter always provides it, already reaching for Tony too.

 

Tony slows the video down again when Peter teaches him ASL. He isn’t sure why.

 

Peter spends a lot of time talking. Tony slows the tape down a few times, just to hear what he’s saying. He talks to FRIDAY, brainstorming out loud. Most of his ideas are great, even if they don’t work. Tony feels stupidly proud of him.

He talks to Tony, too, just providing a running commentary of what he’s doing. The Tony on film sits unaware, never answering.

It’s hard to look at himself. He looks a bit like a zombie, if he’s honest. Staring at nothing, not reacting to anything going on around him. Except for when Peter touches him. When Peter takes a moment and takes Tony’s hand or brushes against his shoulder, Tony lights up like he’s coming back alive, like a robot being powered up. And then Peter will leave and Tony shuts off again.

He hates himself a few times, when he sees Peter’s composure slipping. As his shoulders slump lower and lower as he makes call after call, trying desperately to find someone who could help.

Most of them tell him it’s hopeless. After the third famous neurologist hangs up on Peter after telling him to give up, Peter grabs a wrench and throws it across the room with a furious yell. The wrench smashes into the wall, taking a chunk of concrete out, and they both fall to the floor with a clang.

Tony is sitting five feet away and doesn’t flinch. He looks away from the screen.

“I’m not giving up,” he hears Peter say quietly. He glances back and sees Peter holding his hand, head bowed low. “I’m not giving up on you.”

After a moment, Peter sits up, wipes at his eyes, and goes back to work.

“Fast forward, FRI,” Tony whispers in a thick voice. He’s never seen Peter lose his temper like that. Not once in all the time they’ve known each other.

He doesn’t slow down the film to hear the phone call with Pepper. He doesn’t want to deal with that.

He knows what comes next. And sure enough, a few minutes later, he sees Peter grab Tony’s wrist and pull him up.

“Slow it down,” Tony orders, sitting forward in his chair.

Peter’s speaking a mile a minute.

“Shoot, Mr. Stark, I don’t know what to do,” he says as they go to the living room. He leaves Tony standing there as he goes to peer out the windows. He swears and Tony raises his eyebrows. He’ll have to have a talk with the kid about taking advantage of his hearing loss.

“They need my help, but you also need my help and.... dang it.” He hesitates for a minute, then seems to make up his mind.

“I’m so sorry about this, sir, but they need Spider-Man. I’ll be as fast as I can, I swear.” Tony hears himself protesting, trying to keep Peter from going.

“People will die,” Peter says, even though Tony can’t hear him. “I have to go. I’m sorry. Please just stay here, I’ll be fine, I promise.” And then he’s gone.

The tape skips forward, because Peter isn’t in it. It starts again as Peter slips through the window of his room.

“Mr. Stark ok?” He asks FRIDAY as he comes in, ditching his mask on the bed and immediately going toward the living room.

“He was mildly distressed at your leaving, Peter, but appears to have calmed down.”

Peter looks guilty. The expression only intensifies when he comes into the room and sees Tony sitting with his head in his hands on the couch, the remnants of the lamp shattered on the floor.

Peter sighs, walking toward Tony. He looks exhausted, like he hasn’t slept in days. Tony’s gut twists at the sight.

Peter kneels in front of Tony, leaning up against his knees. He watches himself jump, rushing to check that Peter’s alright.

“I’m ok,” he murmuring. “I’m alright, Mr. Stark. I promise. I’m sorry I scared you.”

He closes his eyes as Tony runs his thumbs over his eyelids, and keeps them closed. It’s quiet for a few minutes, just Tony’s reactions to Peter’s silent story.

“Get ‘em all?” his past self asks. He watches Peter put his hand up to his face so that Tony can feel him nod, his eyes still closed.

“Good boy.” Peter’s eyes open. He looks at Tony, eyes soft as he watches him, that warm smile on his face.

“Thanks, Tony,” Peter whispers.

Tony swallows hard. Thankfully, Peter’s expression is hidden as he buries his face against Tony’s knee.  

The video pauses.

“Boss, Miss Potts is here.”

Tony whirls toward the door, and sure enough, Pepper is hurrying towards him. He gets up to meet her halfway.

“Tony!” Pepper throws herself into his arms, holding him close.

“Hi, honey,” he whispers, remembering the last words he’d said to her, thinking that he would die without seeing her again. He’d been almost been right, too. He’d would have died without Peter, would never have been able to hold his fiancée again.

She pulls away, just far enough to look at him. “Peter and Rhodey told me everything that happened. Oh my gosh, I’m so glad you’re alright.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m fine. Sorry for scaring you.” He means it. He wishes being in a relationship with him didn’t mean constantly being afraid that he’ll die, but he is so grateful that she puts up with it.

Pepper sighs, smiling a little. “Unfortunately, I’m used to it. Doesn’t mean it didn’t still scare me to death.” She looks at him intently for a minute. “Rhodey told me something else.”

Tony suddenly can’t meet her eyes. “I’m going to apologize. I swear, I’m just...” He trails off, not sure how to finish that thought.

“Embarrassed.”

Tony chuckles under his breath. “That’s an understatement. Pep, he practically had to feed me, he had to pick out my clothes, had to hold my hand while I walked. It’s like I was an infant and he was my parent, which is—”

“Backwards,” Pepper interjects, smiling at him slyly. He scowls, cause she’s right.

“I was going to say ‘weird,’” he grouses. She smiles again, runs her hand through his hair.

“What are you doing down here?” She asks suddenly.

“I was watching the security footage,” he admits, a little ashamed of himself for dwelling on his own incapacities.

Pepper just hums, walks toward the computer and sitting in his chair. Tony follows, leaning over her shoulder.

“Play it, please, FRIDAY,” she asks.

On screen, the video shows as Tony tugs Peter up from the floor, as Peter curls into Tony’s stomach. Tony’s face burns as Pepper tilts her head a little, watching intently as Tony plays with Peter’s hair.

“You know, you kept saying he ‘had’ to do these things to help you,” she says quietly. Tony turns to look at her. She tips her face up toward him, her expression serious. “But we both know that he did it all because he wanted to.”

Tony doesn’t answer. After a moment, Pepper leans up and kisses his cheek. “Don’t be too long,” she says, then she leaves, the tape still playing.

Tony looks after her for a moment, considers abandoning the little project and following. Then he settles back in his chair and keeps watching.

 

Because Tony had requested only the footage of Peter, when he breaks down in the lab with Rhodey, the video switches, following Peter into the kitchen instead.

He stands in the center of the room for a minute looking vaguely lost. He doesn’t bother going to a chair, just sinks down and sits on the floor, hugging his knees.

Tony watches a tear drip down his cheek, but the kid takes several deep breaths, swiping it away in annoyance. Then he just sits and waits for FRIDAY to tell him he can go back in.

 

The footage of the lab after Tony has gone to bed is mostly the same as all the rest, but now there’s Rhodey, calmly following Peter’s instructions, sometimes giving Peter some advice or suggestions. They both seem fully intent on working through the night.

And then FRIDAY interrupts.

“Boss appears to have had a nightmare and has fallen in the hall.” Tony’s face burns red at the wording, but neither Peter nor Rhodey crack a smile. Instead, they both jump up. They both pause for a moment, looking at each other, before Rhodey shoos Peter on.

Peter hurries out of the lab and up towards Tony’s room, looking frazzled and stressed.

He freezes when he sees Tony sitting on the floor having a panic attack. Then he bolts forward, reaching for Tony’s shoulder. He looks surprised when Tony hauls him into his arms, but settles into the embrace quickly. His voice is muffled against Tony’s shoulder.

“FRI, isolate Peter’s voice and amplify it.”

After a moment, the words become clearer.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m trying so hard to fix it, I’m doing everything I can,” Peter assures him, as if Tony had any doubt in his determination. He seems to be trying to crawl further into Tony’s lap, pushing himself closer as he clutches at Tony’s shirt.

“But I don’t know how. This is... so far beyond me.” His voice breaks. Tony feels it in his chest. He wishes he could go back in time and hold him tighter.

He knows that Peter’s going to start crying, but the sound of Peter’s first cut-off sob is like a knife to the chest.

“I don’t know how to save you,” Peter confesses.

He can see his own hand rhythmically tapping against Peter’s neck.

“No,” Peter whimpers, shaking his head. “No, no, this is _my fault_. You got drugged because of me. And I can’t save you.” He sobs again and Tony flinches. “Please, I can’t lose you. Not you, too.”

Tony’s breathing hard, the need to go get Peter _right now_ and comfort him so strong he has to hold on to the desk to stop himself.

He almost tells FRIDAY to fast forward.

On the screen, his hands have found Peter’s face, gently lifting his head up so he can wipe the tears away.

“I love you,” Peter hiccups.

Tony freezes.

“Play that again,” he whispers. Dutifully, FRIDAY rewinds the tapes.

“Please, I can’t lose you. Not you, too,” Peter is saying. Tony lifts his head. “I love you.”

Peter is looking at him through his red, puffy eyes, tears still trickling down his cheeks. He looks desperate, heartbroken.

Tony is barely breathing.

He watches himself give Peter an eskimo kiss. The mortification surges up, but it’s washed away just as quickly as he hears Peter giggle, a small, wet sound. It was worth it, for that.

Peter buries his face in Tony’s other shoulder, his arms wrapping around Tony’s waist.

“I love you,” he says again. Because he knows Tony can’t hear it.

“Stop the tape,” Tony says. Immediately the video pauses, still showing Tony holding Peter on the floor in the middle of the hallway.   

He has to apologize.

 

He makes dinner. Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy watch from the table with raised eyebrows. He tells them multiple times to shut up, but they insist they aren’t talking. Which is true, but he can hear everything they want to say just in their expressions.

He makes his mom’s fettucine alfredo, piles on parmesan cheese—the good kind, not from a shaker—and then fills two bowls.

“Alright, you animals, have at it,” he says as he leaves. They all know what he’s doing, so no one protests.

He knocks on Peter’s door, his hands shaking. He holds onto the bowls tighter.

Peter calls a soft ‘come in.’ Tony balances the bowls in one hand and cautiously opens the door. Peter sees him, twisting his mouth to one side and looking up at him without raising his head from the laptop propped on his knees.

Tony raises the bowls like a peace offering. Peter considers him for a moment before closing the laptop and pushing it aside.

Tony sits on the bed facing Peter, handing him a bowl. He waits for Peter to start eating, but he doesn’t. Instead he takes a deep breath and looks up.

“You know why I don’t want the money, don’t you, Mr. Stark?” He asks, looking surprisingly grave for such a young kid.

“Cause you’re Spider-Man. You help people. Just because they need help,” he says. That’s not all of it, but if that’s enough to get him back in Peter’s good graces, then he’ll leave it at that. He’s not brave enough to say what he thinks the reason might actually be.

“No,” Peter scowls. “Well, yes, but no.” He looks down at the bowl of rapidly cooling pasta. “I helped you cause you’re family, Tony. You should have realized that by now.”

Tony’s throat is dangerously tight. He thinks frantically for something to say.

“I missed watching you work,” he blurts out. Peter’s head jerks up, and he stares at Tony.

He can’t take it back. Might as well run with it.

“And I missed being able to answer your questions. And I missed your laugh.” He pauses, wipes at his brimming eyes. “Gosh, I missed your laugh.”

He forces himself to look up at Peter, who’s still staring at him.

“Thank you.” He’s not sure he’s ever meant it so much in his life.

“You’re welcome,” Peter says numbly. Then he’s diving forward to wrap his arms around Tony’s waist. Tony is barely able to avoid dropping his bowl as he gets an armful of teenager.

“I missed you so much,” Peter whispers as Tony wraps his arms around Peter’s shoulders. “I mean you were you, but you weren’t _you._ Not at the end.”

“I know, kid. I missed you, too.” It’s a ridiculous thing to say. He’s never been so close to Peter for so long in his life, but part of him had been inaccessible to Tony. How many times had he thought ‘I wish I knew what Peter is saying’ or ‘I wish I could see what face Peter’s making right now’?

He wants to stay like that, holding Peter, for a long time. But after a moment he pulls away. “Eat your dinner before it gets cold.”

Peter obliges, grabbing his bowl of food and digging in. After a moment, and without looking up at Tony, he scoots over so Tony has room to lean against the headboard.

Tony shifts around, leans back. Their shoulders are touching and neither of them move.

“I figured I needed to say sorry,” Tony mumbles, “for how I acted. And you made me dinner, so, um. My mom’s alfredo. As an apology.”

Peter looks up at him and Tony meets his gaze. It’s the same way he looked at him in the video, as he’d knelt on the floor with Tony’s hand on his cheek. Eyes soft, a warm smile curling the corners of his mouth.

“It’s really good, Mr. Stark.”

Tony smiles at him, nudges him in the ribs with his elbow.

“Thanks, kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said one more chapter and I stuck with it. Even if the last chapter is longer than the other two combined. In fact, this is the longest story I've ever written and I'm a bit baffled that I threw it together in less than a week. Oh well.
> 
> Typically, dysphonia manifests as a hoarse voice, but in this house we like drama. 
> 
> This has been so much fun, and so interesting, to write. Having to slowly go to no visual description, to one sided dialogue, to no dialogue, was a really fun challenge for myself. I hope you guys enjoyed it just as much as I did.
> 
> Thank you so much for all the kudos and comments. I love hearing your opinions so tell me what you thought! Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Do kids still know who Emeril is? No, right? 
> 
> There will be two more chapters, probably about the same length as this. I just didn't want to post all at once cause I know a 10k word fic can be kind of daunting. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, please let me know what you think!


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